


These Ghosts Love Us Soundly

by GalaxyGhosty



Category: JackSepticEye (YouTube RPF), Markiplier (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Sex, Infidelity, M/M, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 07:12:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3927619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyGhosty/pseuds/GalaxyGhosty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Mark stares. The intensity of that stare hurts him, and suddenly, every stress, every worry, every ache and pain bursts to life inside of him. He bites back his guttural scream but can't hold back, “I'm so <em>lonely!</em>”</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Ghosts Love Us Soundly

**Author's Note:**

> I...don't really know what to say about this.
> 
> I wrote this in two days. Well, one and a half. Basically it's...I don't know. I've been in a place these last few days. And this story...came out of that place.
> 
> Usually, I feel like I write stories to please others. But this one's...different. I wrote this story because I had a story to tell. I wanted this story to be heard. I don't really know what else to say about it other than that. 
> 
> I wanted this story to be heard. What you think about it is up to you. Good or bad. I don't know. 
> 
> When I talked about this story, I explained it as, "Two people in love. Then out of love. Then realizing they'd loved each other all along."
> 
> I don't know if that's what this story is to you. You can tell me what you think. Or don't. Either way.
> 
> Listen to Bastille's "Sleepsong" if you want something to play in the background while you read. 
> 
> Thanks.

| _"Oh, you go to sleep on your own. And you wake each day with your thoughts. And it scares you being **alone**. It's a last resort."_ |

~~

_“Hi, this is the voice mail of Mark Fischbach. Please leave a message and I'll be sure to get back to you real soon! Buh-bye!”_

Click. Redial. Ring.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

_“Hi, this is the voice mail of Mark Fischbach. Please leave a message and I'll be sure to get back to you real soon! Buh-bye!”_

Click. Redial. Ring.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

_“Hi, this is the voice mail of--”_

Click. Jack sighs. He drops his phone on the bed beside him, rubbing his hands over his face. Mark should answer. It is too late at night for him to be busy. Or maybe it's too early. Or maybe it's a perfectly reasonable hour to be busy. He doesn't know. He's not sure where Mark is anymore.

The apartment feels too quiet. It's too dark and too large and too suffocating for one person. Its dreary olive walls close in too fiercely against him, heavy with something—a stale, acrid air that reminds Jack of a sewer system.

The clock ticks. He waits for his phone to light up with a returned call, but nothing. Even a text would do. But nothing. A pressure is building in his chest.

He hasn't talked to Mark in almost five days. It's too long. He misses him too greatly for this.

Jack takes his phone and puts it into the drawer on the nightstand. He grabs his keys and leaves the room, towards the front door. Grabbing his shoes, he slips them on and exits, locking the door behind him.

Tonight, he needs to get away from the apartment.

Tonight, he needs a drink.

~~

The beer burns as it goes down his throat. It's nothing compared to the burn in him, though, right behind his eyes and at the base of chest, where his heart is. The bar smells of liquor and cigarette smoke, chalk and regret. It gives Jack a nauseated feeling.

He downs his beer and raises his hand for another. A voice beside him stops his order mid-sentence.

“His next round's on me,” the voice says, and Jack looks over to the source.

It's a guy. He's lean and lithe with thinly veiled muscle. He's got dark hair, almost auburn in the shady light, but perhaps it's just an ugly shade of brown.

“What's a cutie like you doing all by your lonesome on a night like this?” the man asks, and his eyes glimmer with hidden intent. They are grey, an ugly sort of grey, not the pretty kind, not warm enough. They aren't warm enough or inviting enough or anything in between.

Not brown enough.

Jack drinks a swig of the beer the man had just bought him. He doesn't quite feel that buzz, yet. He's still able to make rational decisions.

“Various reasons,” Jack says, answering the question at hand. He takes another big gulp. He doesn't bother to ask for the man's name. He offers no thank you.

“What's your name?” the guy purrs, scooting closer to him, as close as one can get on bar stools.

Jack, he almost says. But that isn't right, no. Jack is for friends. For Wade and Bob and Felix and Matthias and Daithi.

For Mark.

He mumbles instead, “Sean,” over the clinking of the glasses, and the soft patter of balls being hit at the pool table.

“You look so sad, Sean,” the man whispers. His voice is uncomfortable against him, against his ears and his face and all of him. “Maybe you need a friend? Or...perhaps a stranger?”

So blunt. Does Jack really look so pitiful? Does he look so easy? Ignoring the question, he drinks again, swallowing the rest of the glass.

Too much. He's drank too much. There's a shake in his fingers and a heat in his cheeks. Not quite enough. Too much.

He should tell the guy to go away. He should thank him for the beer and tell him to go, or maybe he should leave. Yes, he should go home and curl into his too-large bed for only him, and sleep away this buzz that urges him to do something wrong, something consciously wrong, but he is not fully in control, now.

Jack should say he has a boyfriend. It's true. He does.

But he doesn't. He says in answer to the question, “Probably.”

Getting from the bar to his apartment is a blur. But he remembers kisses down his neck, his shoulders, against his collarbone. He remembers his clothes stripped away, teasingly, tenderly, but the man's hands are cold and rough and it's odd.

It isn't good. The feel of the stranger's skin against his is too unfamiliar, too unknown, too sad. But he doesn't say anything as the rest of his clothes are rid of, and they move to the bed, the bed he shares with Mark.

The one he _should_ share with Mark. But Mark isn't here.

He never is.

The sex isn't good at all either. Again, it is too rough and too strange and too foreign for him to enjoy it. He stares at the ceiling the entire time and grips the sheets tight between his fingers. The pressure in him keeps building and when he finally comes he barely mutters a whisper, not even in relief.

He is filled with uncertainty. He is filled with some sort of taint, settling into the hollowness of his lonely heart.

The guy falls asleep in the spot Mark should sleep in beside him. He gets up and cleans himself, before pulling on his boxers and crawling back into his own spot. It feels strange to have a body next to him. Yet, the thought makes him want to cry.

Jack stares at the wall for a long time. The clock ticks. The reality of what he's done is bearing down on him. He feels guilty, but then he doesn't, but then he does again.

And honestly, _honestly_. He just feels lonely.

~~

He wakes to someone screaming.

It's the guy from last night. Jack wonders why. But then he sees it. As he opens his eyes, a flash of blue flannel crosses his vision, a wisp of black hair, glasses, and brown eyes. He hears it.

“Get the _fuck_ out of my house,” Mark is hissing, low and dangerous. “ _Now!_ ”

Jack's gaze finds the guy stumbling out the bedroom door, Mark practically manhandling him out. He's pulling on his clothes haphazardly, obviously scared of the crazy man who woke him up. Their eyes don't lock as he hurries out, and a beat passes and the front door slams. They are alone.

Mark says nothing. Jack can see him trembling, though, with an anger unknown to him. He is surprised by how calm he feels in light of this. He slowly gets out of bed and puts on the rest of his clothes, feeling lethargic in movement.

The world moves as though in slow motion. When he pulls on his hoodie, Mark says quietly, “Who was that?”

“I don't know,” Jack replies, and he doesn't. He never asked for a name. He doesn't care.

“So you sleep with him,” Mark mutters. “You sleep with some goddamn stranger, whose name you don't know, in _our_ apartment, in _our_ bed, on _our_ sheets--”

Jack grinds his teeth. “ _My_ apartment. _My_ bed. _My_ sheets. You're not here enough for them to be yours.”

Mark is angry. There's no doubt about it. But Jack cannot hold his tongue, nor the snide remark back. It only makes him angrier.

“You _fucked_ someone in _our_ home!” Mark snarls. He cannot step past that. “Jack, what the hell were you doing? You're _my--!_ ”

“Nothing,” Jack cuts him off. “I'm your nothing. Obviously. No returned calls, no texts. No post cards, no letters, anything. Gone for weeks on end, you are. Home for a day, but not really here. Like a ghost. You don't touch me. You don't love me. I'm _nothing_ to you.”

_He_ feels like the ghost as he moves towards the hall. Mark's gaze is heavy on him. It is filling him to the brim.

“You know damn well that isn't true,” Mark says, his voice too soft, now. The fury is still there, his words deliberate. This is how he is when he is truly angry, Jack thinks. A quiet titan. A storm on the rise. The eye of it. He will leave the eye of the storm soon, though.

Jack goes to the kitchen. Mark's footsteps weigh loudly behind him. He wonders why Mark still says nothing. Perhaps there is nothing to say. He grabs a glass, filling it with water from the sink. He drinks. His head hurts.

“Tell me again,” Jack closes his eyes as he speaks. His calmness surprises him still. “How much you love me. How much I mean to you. How you'll do everything you can for me. Now, do you remember what you said to me when you asked me to move in with you? You said I'd never be lonely. That you'd cherish me. That you would make all the hassle of leaving my home worth it.”

Jack grips the glass. Then he slams it on the floor. It shatters everywhere. He sneers, shaking himself with his words. “It's _not_ worth it!”

Mark stares. The intensity of that stare hurts him, and suddenly, every stress, every worry, every ache and pain bursts to life inside of him. He bites back his guttural scream but can't hold back, “I'm so _lonely!_ ”

The silence after is deafening. He feels sick. Mark says, “I'm trying my best, Jack! I know I'm not here a lot but that doesn't mean you can just--!”

“Excuse the fuck out of me,” Jack hisses. “For wanting to feel something. For wanting to have someone next to me for a night. Excuse the fuck out of me for wanting to remember what it was like to have a warm body next to me and to not feel so utterly--!”

“You cheated on me,” Mark spits back, as though the words themselves are disgusting on his tongue. “You betrayed me. You don't get to be angry!”

“I'm _already_ angry!” Jack replies, his tone fervent. He hardly recognizes himself, just then. He hardly recognizes Mark as the man's jaw twitches, baring his teeth, anger bubbling higher and higher up to the surface. “I've been angry for so long. You're never here. This place is too big, too spacious, too _much_ for just me! You promised me more, Mark. You promised me more than you're willing to give and it's not _fair_.”

Jack steps over the glass, but not carefully. Some pieces catch in his bare feet. It sticks. He ignores the pain and pushes past Mark, who blocks his way between the kitchen and the living room.

“So that's how it is,” Mark seethes. “I spend my nights alone, waiting for the day to end so I'm one day closer to seeing you again, and because you're _angry_ at me, because you're _lonely_ , you sleep with someone else. That's so cowardly, Jack. I thought more of you. There were so many other ways to handle it--!”

He cannot stop saying it. Jack knows what he's done. He hears Mark and he laughs. So bitter. He? The coward? He snarls, “I'm the coward? Me? The man who uprooted his whole life and came to an unfamiliar country, all to be with you? That's fucking rich!”

He's laughing. Mark says, “I can't believe what I'm hearing.”

He looks tired, now that Jack gets a good look at him. He realizes he doesn't even know why Mark is here. But he continues, “I called you back last night. Twice. I sent three texts. I was coming home. I was going to surprise you. I was so excited. We hadn't talked in a while. And what do I find when I return? My _boyfriend_ sleeping with someone he doesn't even know the name of!”

The venom drips from his voice, like a poison dagger, cutting at his heart ruthlessly. The apartment is still too quiet. It suffocates him again. He wants to cry.

He is full.

“Fuck you,” he mumbles. Then finally, he cannot contain himself. “Fuck you, Mark. You've got no idea what it's like to be alone _this fucking much_ , all the damn time! You're off traveling the goddamn world and making friends and being the perfect, perfect _fucker_ you are, meanwhile I'm here trying to keep myself together, wondering if you're sticking your dick into anyone else and if I even matter to you anymore!”

“I would _never_ ,” Mark hisses. “But apparently, you have no such trouble finding conquests elsewhere! Is this the first one, Jack? Or is this the second? Third? Fourth? How many has it been, Jack? _Tell me!_ ”

Jack can't stay. This is too much. His feet tingle with the specks of blood dripping from them. He storms towards the bedroom. Mark is still rattling off ridicules to him as he goes. He throws open the closet door and grabs his suitcase. He tosses it onto the bed and carelessly throws shirts and socks and boxers inside, along with jeans and hoodies and _whatever_. Mark comes in behind him, and finally is yelling, “I hate it too! I hate being away from you! But this is my dream, Jack. Being out there in the world is my dream. I thought _you_ of all people would be happy for me!”

On a whim, Jack tosses his passport inside of the case as well. He whirls around, shouting back, “I gave up _everything_ to be with you! I left my home and my life in Ireland and all that I had to be with you, Mark! And all for _nothing_! You're never here! I'm all alone, and it's no different than when we were apart, day in and day out, except I'm too small in a too big place and I'm losin' my _fucking_ mind here!”

“Then why don't you just _go?_ ” Mark retaliates, his tone clipped and annoyed. His brows are furrowed together in rage, the bridge of his nose scrunched and his posture tight. “If you're so unhappy, so lonely, just leave!”

Jack zips up the suitcase with a swift movement. His painful, bleeding feet hurt more as he stuffs them into socks and shoes. The process is tedious. He feels like dead weight. Mark's sharp eyes pierce him with every movement he makes.

“Where do you think I'm going?” Jack says, soft and suddenly very weary. The fight within him is leaving. It is replaced with hollowness once again.

He grips the suitcase handle tight, and he pushes past him. Mark doesn't stop him as he grabs his phone from the drawer. He doesn't remember if he packed his charger. Who cares? Without looking at his phone, he struts to the front door. He doesn't look back as he throws it open and slams it behind him.

~~

LA is scary. In the morning. At night. But right now it is morning and his eyes hurt and so does his arse, along with his skin and feet and ears and lips and heart. All of him hurts as he rides in the cab to somewhere, somewhere, anywhere, away. The cab stops on the street corner where he'd said, and with spare cash he pays the fare and steps out. He ghosts his way to the apartment complex close by, not knowing and knowing where he's going.

He knocks. Mary answers. He's not sure she quite remembers his name but Ken does, and when he comes in he notices his state with concern. Jack hasn't seen himself since last night. He feels clammy and unwashed and tired.

“Jack?” he asks. “Jack, you okay? Jesus, where's Mark?”

But it aches. The mention of his name causes an ache. As Jack stumbles inside, he collapses to to his knees. A shudder escapes him, and he starts to cry. He sits on Ken and Mary's floor and cries like he hasn't cried in years, because he realizes just then that he's fucked up, that he's messed it all up so bad, but he's also not to blame. He is to blame and isn't at the same time and he doesn't know how that could be. It's all hitting him just now, as if the fight earlier didn't prove it enough.

Ken is Mark's friend too. It scares him to know that when he finds out what Jack has done, he'll kick him out of this house, remove him from his floor like the taint he is.

But for now, he cries, letting Mary wrap a blanket around him, rubbing his back soothingly.

~~

He doesn't talk about it. Ken doesn't ask. It is a rhythmic sort of pattern where Jack keeps to himself in the guest room, almost as if not there, and tries not to bother anyone in the house. If Ken talks to Mark at any point, Jack knows nothing of it.

Jack stays for three days. In those three days, he buys himself a one-way ticket to someplace far, far away. Korea. He chooses Korea. His plane leaves in two hours.

He showers and changes into clothes that don't match. He doesn't mind. He packs all of his things together again and holds his passport tight. He tells Ken he is leaving.

“Where are you going now?” is his question, and it's a reasonable question. He doesn't ask all of the other things, but he knows he wants to. Jack doesn't give it to him, though.

“Away,” Jack replies. “I can't...I can't be here. I gotta go. I just...gotta go. Thank you. For everything.”

He says no more and is away towards the airport, where he has no idea what will be in store for him. He chooses Korea because it is far, far away. Away from LA. Away from all the hurt and ache and loneliness.

But maybe it's because Mark's Korean, too.

~~

Jack catches the plane just in time. He sits next to some woman who he doesn't talk to at any point and she doesn't talk to him. She's got her own life and her own job and her own story—and he doesn't care to find out about it.

He doesn't go straight to Korea. He has various flights in hops. He goes to Utah, then to Georgia, then to London and then somewhere in between—he doesn't remember. But then to Korea. It's going to be a long flight.

Jack leaves his phone off. It remains that way for his entire series of flights. All of his flights are a straight stretch, hardly any lay over, except from London to that weird place he doesn't remember the name of. In London, he waits.

The airport is busy and bustling and uncomfortable. Jack buys a coffee but doesn't drink it. It grows cold in his hand and he waits. He waits. He waits.

Time passes too slowly. But at some point a young man sits next to him.

He is lithe and pale with sharp cheekbones and a nice smile. He's looking at his phone with that smile, and the blue of his eyes lights up at a message. His dark hair reminds Jack of Mark.

The young man looks to him. “You look a little sad, mate. Something the matter?”

He's got a soft English accent. It's comforting. Jack shakes his head but thinks better of his answer. He whispers, “A lot on my mind.”

“Airports are the worst place to have that,” the young man says. “Too much time to think.”

“Yeah,” Jack rubs at his eyes. He's still tired. “I fucked up bad.”

He doesn't know why he's telling the guy this. But the young man nods understandingly anyway, not pressing for details. “We all do.”

“So badly,” Jack chokes. It hits him just how bad this situation is. “I can't fix that, no matter what. I'm to blame but I'm not to blame. That doesn't make sense.”

He feels like he's in a daze. The young man stares. Then he shrugs. “You know, I used to think that, too. I used to think I messed up so badly that there was no reparation for it at all. I was misguided—everything that happened was my fault but it wasn't my fault. I did it but it was because I had bad decisions being made for me.”

The young man is silent for a brief moment, and Jack feels like this young man is much older than he seems. Then, “But the point is...it's never too late. It's never too late to go back and fix it. Nothing is irreparable. That's what I learned myself.”

His words shake him. Jack stares. The young man smiles and returns to looking at his phone for a second before he stands up, and pockets it.

“My ride is here,” he chuckles. “Best of luck. I hope it works out for you.”

It won't. But Jack wishes it would too. 

~~

Korea is vast and scary and more terrifying than LA ever was. The streets are alive with foreign faces and he stands out amongst the crowd, he can tell. He's too tall and too Irish and too awkward to fit into this society. This is a terrible decision.

But he can't go back now. Jack had bought an English-Korean dictionary in the airport and holds it tenderly to his chest. It is his guide, now. He worms his way out of the busy airport and down to the streets of someplace not quite Seoul—but close. He knows it's close.

Jack ducks into a café and the place smells of coffee and sugar and sweets. It's a familiar sort of smell, and for a moment he loses himself in its comfort. But he snaps out of it and walks to the counter, where a pretty girl waits at the register for him to order something.

He doesn't meet her eyes as he tries to order something familiar. There are crude English translations on the menu but he doesn't know if that will get his point across. Perhaps he should've gone to a more mainstream café but this one seemed nice, and it is a small place with no need to cater to tourists.

Jack finds himself heavy as he orders a familiar coffee, rolling off his tongue in an awkward mixture of Korean and his Irish accent. He blushes when the girl at the counter giggles, but she seems to understand him enough. He says the word for _cinnamon_ , hoping they have some, and she can't contain her laughter very well, as she lets out a soft snort.

“I can understand English,” she says, a gentle accent in her words. But for all intents and purposes, it's good English. “Cinnamon, I think you tried to say?”

He nods tiredly and can't help but feel mocked. He's never spoken a lick of Korean in his life but yet he feels ashamed of his mispronunciation. He feels ashamed of so many things, he feels ashamed of ordering a coffee he doesn't even like.

(But it is Mark's favorite.)

The girl looks at him so strangely, then, as if she sees him differently now, given his expression. She darts away to make his beverage and he waits, idly, and after a moment, she returns, freshly brewed with the cinnamon hitting him full force.

Tears well in his eyes as he takes it. He fumbles towards his pocket to pay her but she shakes her head.

“It is quiet today,” she says. “Let us sit. I will teach you how to say cinnamon properly.”

He thinks maybe she's joking, but she moves around the counter and goes to a little table by the window. She encourages him to follow. He does so, and sits across from her, the coffee untouched.

Jack really does learn how to say cinnamon properly. Her lips move in slow patterns that open up to a colorful new world. He says it with her and she laughs at his accent, but not in a bad way.

When he sips the cold coffee on a whim, Jack remembers something stupid and he starts to cry. Actually cry this time. In front of a pretty girl. He hates himself for it. But she reaches across the table and touches his hand and doesn't make fun of him for crying.

He is lonely. He is still lonely when she asks him if he wants to come home with her, if he's got nowhere to go. He must have that look to him. Carrying his suitcase awkwardly and crying over cold coffee. He must look lost.

The kindness of strangers is not unknown to him. But she is totally unfamiliar and he doesn’t even know her name. He should say no. Logically, Jack should just leave her be and find someplace to stay, or sleep on the street, or something, anything, because whatever he gets is what he deserves. 

But he says yes anyway. He says yes and he doesn’t know her name but he calls her by the word for cinnamon every time and she always answers him. 

~~

Jack spends the next few nights in Korea with her, in a pleasant little place for two. She has a roommate but they work some sort of nightshift, so Jack never sees them. He sleeps on her couch and uses her bathroom and it’s such a dainty and sweet place that Jack feels guilty for using it. 

All of it. He’s at a loss for a while. He follows her and hangs out in the little café, watching as the morning crowds roll in and out in a seat by the window. At one point, she invites him over and teaches him how to use the machine. 

There’s something therapeutic about it. Jack can’t explain how it feels to do something automatically, how he doesn’t really have to think about it. She even lets him fill one of the orders and it’s pleasurable, exciting to hear the person thank him in English, a heavy Korean accent lilting it. 

“How would you like to work here?” she asks him after he’s filled the next three orders, and Jack is uncertain about her offer. Given, he doesn’t know how long he is going to be here. He could be here only two more days. Two more weeks. Two years. It’s impossible to really know. 

It’s been a little over a week since he left Mark, and three days since he landed in Korea and met her. The thought of going home and facing his ex-boyfriend terrifies him. He cannot go back to that apartment.

Despite his better judgment, he takes the job, and thanks her for her kindness again and again once the details are sorted out with her manager. 

~~

In total, Jack is in Korea for two weeks. In the first week, his guilt overtakes him, because how can a girl so kind as she live with such a disgusting sinner like himself? On that particular evening, he’d packed his bags and had planned on leaving, when she stopped him. 

“I did something really bad,” Jack had said. “And I’m running away. I’m a fuckin’ coward, okay? And I don’t…I don’t want to give you the chance to kick me out.”

“Hospitality,” she had replied. “Is what I’m good at. Now, you sit down and you tell me what is wrong, and I decide if you did something bad.” 

So he spills his heart to her. Jack tells her of his loneliness and grief and longing and his ache of missing the one he loved the most. He shares with her the story of getting drunk, of sleeping with another man, of fighting and blaming and pointing fingers and running away. He cries the entire time he tells this story because he feels sick and gross and less than nothing, less than nothing now. Mark hates him. All he’d wanted was his love. 

“What you did,” she replies to him later. Her fingers run over his cheek. It’s not a romantic gesture. It’s comforting, endearing, almost like a mother, or a loving sister. “Is not right. By any means. But your wounded heart blinded you from what is right and wrong. And your wounded heart is because of Mark. You are both to blame. And so you both must put it back together, if you desire.” 

Jack doesn’t think Mark will ever forgive him. He’s not the type to hate but then again, Jack isn’t supposed to be the type to cheat. People are products of circumstance, he thinks. He’s too afraid to go back and face him, to really hear whether or not Mark hates him. His guilt fills him too deeply. 

“At least you still love him,” she says, and when he looks confused, she amends, “Your guilt is proof enough.”

~~

In the second week, Jack tries to kiss her. It’s on a whim. It’s stupid. But he’s still bleeding, somehow, _somehow_ , as if he’ll never stop. When he sleeps, he constantly sees Mark’s enraged face, hears his poisonous words, and it never leaves him. 

He should have talked to him. He should have gone home alone that night. He shouldn’t have slept with a fucker he didn’t even know the name of. He shouldn’t have run away. He shouldn’t be here in Korea, but he is. He is and despite how much of a bastard he’s become, he still wants to be loved and he thinks maybe he’ll find it in her. 

But when he tries, she stops him. Not in a horrified, disgusted way. Just a gentle push on the shoulder is enough to stop him. Jack hangs his head in his own shame, and he starts crying again. He’s cried so much, these last few days. More so than anyone ever should. She wipes them away. 

“It is not me you want,” she tells him, point blank. “Is it?”

All it takes is for her to say it, because she’s not. It’s like him sleeping with that guy all over again. He didn’t want them. He just wanted someone because he misses Mark so fiercely, even now, that it’s killing him. It’s killing him. He’s wasting away. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers to her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

After a beat, she says, “You need to go home. Back to him. Fix it.”

“I can’t,” Jack breathes. “He’ll never talk to me again. He hates me. I betrayed him.”

“You betrayed each other,” she replies firmly. “You slept with someone else, but he did not treat you as he should. Both are horrendous actions.” 

She hugs him tight. “And besides. Nothing is irreparable.” 

~~

Amongst his things, he finds one of Mark's shirts. Jack must have accidentally packed it. 

He presses his face into the soft fabric, and breathes in the scent. It still smells of Mark, somehow. He can't bring himself to put it on. 

~~

He doesn’t know his last day is his last day. Jack doesn’t know it’s his last day until she presses a stack of bills into his hand and says, “Go.” 

“Go where?” Jack says, pushing the bills back to her. He doesn’t want her money. 

“This is what you earned from working with me,” she tells him. She pushes it back towards him. He doesn’t want it. “You need to go back to Los Angeles.” 

The thought of returning to his LA apartment sends a jolt of fear through him. He doesn’t cry this time, but a nervousness settles into him, and he wants nothing to do with it. 

Korea is peaceful. His life is peaceful here. All he wants is peace.

“There will always be a place for you here,” she tells him, and she seems like she means it. “But right now, he needs you more.”

No, he doesn’t. But he knows he’s overstayed his welcome. Jack takes the money from her, finally, and he hugs her tightly goodbye. He almost doesn’t let go. She whispers her name into his ear and it gives him a sense of closure. Like he’s finally at the end of a chapter. 

~~

He doesn’t go to LA. When Jack buys his ticket at the airport, he can’t convince himself to go to LA. Not ready, he thinks. He’s not ready to go back and face what’s waiting for him.

Or the lack thereof. Mark might not even be there. 

Regardless, he goes home. He truly goes home. He books a plane to Ireland and flies there, wondering if his parents will still love him after all of this. He likes to think they will, but it’s so uncertain. Everything feels so shaky for him. Unstable. 

But when he lands, he goes home. He remembers the same sort of anxiety filling him as he left this airport once before, but that was because of going to LA, to be with Mark, to live with him. It’s only right that the same anxiousness rejoins with him as he leaves it for home, his childhood home. 

His mother answers the door when he knocks. She looks so surprised but somehow relieved, and before she can say anything he sinks into her arms. All of the weight in the world fills him, then, and he calls himself _coward, coward, coward_ over and over in his mind. The regret and guilt he’d thought he’d left behind in Korea is still here. Still here and prominent and never ending. 

She says nothing as she holds her son, and calls for his father. 

~~

Sleeping in his childhood bed is an experience. It feels the same. It feels different. It feels like the right size for him. 

His parents don’t ask a lot of questions. They ask him if he’s been eating, how he’s been sleeping, and if he needs anything. Jack answers negatively to all of them. 

At one point, Jack figures the silence is too much for them, because his mother sits next to him, and asks quietly, “What happened?” 

“I fucked up,” Jack replies simply. “And I can’t face it. I can’t face it at all.”

Then he elaborates. He relives the story again. His shoulders shake. He wants to throw up. He wonders maybe if he had shown this sort of emotion for Mark if he would see how truly remorseful he is. 

Then he realizes he never tried. To be remorseful. He got angry and left. 

“Sean,” his mother whispers, and he looks to her, finding an odd sort of comfort in her gaze. “Sean, you need to go home.” 

“I am home,” Jack answers.

“No,” his father tells him. “Whatever you think Mark thinks of you is probably wrong.” 

The nausea returns. Jack is shaking again. “You didn’t see his face.”

“No,” his mother agrees. “But we have heard him calling us over and over, frantic, asking if you were here, combing the entire world over for any traces of you. You can fix this if you really want to.”

Jack gets stuck on that. He gets stuck in the fact that Mark is looking for him. That Mark wants to find him. That Mark cares. 

~~

Leaving Ireland again after two days is an awful lot like leaving it the first time. Except he’s less excited and more scared.

But just as in love. Just as hopeful. 

~~

He sticks his key into the lock. It clicks. Mark hasn’t changed the locks. 

Jack nudges the door open. His body is weary and wounded from war—but he is still afraid to be away from the front. He is not away from the front. He has trudged right back into the battle. 

The light in the apartment is dim. It’s sunset, the rays from the sun not quite as bright as they should be. The blinds are closed. The coffee table is a mess of maps and photographs and phone numbers, and there, on the couch, is Mark. 

He looks tired too. There are small bags under his eyes. His phone is in his hand and whatever he was saying is cut off, because he looks up and sees him. He hangs up and stares, and Jack feels suffocated by that gaze. He lets go of his suitcase handle. He closes the door. 

Mark licks his lips. “Jack.” 

“Mark,” he swallows. 

Mark rises. Jack wonders if it’ll be a slap or a punch or a shake at the shoulders, or perhaps just words. Mark’s words could do him in. 

It’s none of those things. Mark reaches out, almost as if unsure if Jack is really there, and then he yanks him into a fervent hug, squeezing, and he can’t breathe.

But he doesn’t complain. He lets Mark hug him. He hugs back. He starts crying and he thinks Mark is, too. 

~~

It doesn’t end there. It isn’t as though they hug and that’s the end. They talk. They fight. They take turns crying and screaming and bitching at one another. 

“Are your dreams really more important than me?” Jack hisses. They’ve moved to the bedroom at this point. “I want to support your dreams but _you_ asked _me_ to be here. You wanted me here and then you don’t even care that I’m here.” 

“You are one of the most important things in my life!” Mark shouts. “I value you more than I value myself! It’s not my fault I get busy, that I get carried away! You have to tell me!” 

He reaches out, touching his cheek. Jack lets him. “You have to tell me, Jack.”

“You’re not here to tell,” he whispers, and he bites his lip. 

Mark sucks in a sharp breath. He rubs at his eyes and shakes his head. Jack sits on the bed, at a loss. 

“You slept with someone else,” Mark mumbles, sitting down next to him. “On this bed. Are we gonna talk about that?” 

He doesn’t want to. But Jack shrugs. “It didn’t mean anything. It was stupid. I…God, if I could take it all back, Mark, I would. If I could never have done that…fuckin’ hell. I just…I missed you so much. It had been so long. It’s like I saw you once every few weeks and it was only for a glimmer of a second, and then you were gone again. It’s like giving a crumb to a starving dog. It makes ‘em angry. It makes ‘em wanna go elsewhere, if they can’t get it where they’re at.”

“I don’t know if I can forgive you for that,” Mark says, and Jack’s heart clenches. 

“Is it about forgiving me,” Jack finds himself saying. “Or is it about running away?”

The tension in the air thickens. Mark clears his throat. “Me? Running away, Jack, if I remember correctly--”

“I’m not talking about who ran away literally,” Jack mutters. “You. You always were bad at commitment. You could never stay in one place. Always flitting about like a butterfly, or a bird, or something. Always on the run.” 

“It’s not about that!” Mark spits. He seems so angry, again. But then it’s gone. Defeated. Deflated. Softer, he says, “I can’t lose you, Jack. I love you too much.”

It’s the first time he’s heard Mark say it since he’s been back. It breaks him. “I love you too. I was scared to come back because I couldn’t face you. Couldn’t face what I did because I didn’t want to hear you say you hate me.” 

Mark touches him. Jack looks over. For a moment, they are still, but then Mark cups his cheek and kisses him. It’s warm. It’s sweet. It’s everything that he’s wanted and everything he needs, right now. He grips the front of Mark’s shirt and pulls him forward, kissing him deeper. 

Mark pulls away. He presses their foreheads together. “I can’t hate you. I never will. But Jack. Jack. You gotta tell me this is never going to happen again. You have to promise me that it’ll be me, only me, from now on. No one else. Okay? Okay, Jack?” 

“It’s never been anybody but you,” Jack says, but he realizes that even though he feels like that, he still did something wrong. So he amends himself and nods. “I promise. Only you. Okay.” 

Mark kisses him again. And again. And again. Against his lips, Jack whispers, “I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.” 

Saying it makes him cry again. He feels so stupid. He's cried too much. But he is sorry. He's sorry for cheating, he's sorry for running away, sorry for letting it even get to this point. 

But Mark shakes his head. “I'm sorry too. I'm sorry. It's not just you. It's me, too. It's both of us. I shouldn't have left you alone for so long. I shouldn't have abandoned you. But it's gonna be okay. We'll be okay.”

He hasn't felt Mark against him in so long. Jack pulls at him and Mark kisses him again, his cheeks and his lips and his forehead. He kisses back feverishly, as if delirious with this desire, this need to be with him, his partner. Mark dips him back and whispers in his ear, “Tell me where he kissed you. Tell me all the places he kissed you.” 

Jack flushes with shame. Mark kisses him again as if to rid him of it. Jack takes Mark's hand, moving his hand to his cheek, then down his neck and along his collarbone, his shoulders, down his stomach. Mark seems to take all of this in, and then nods. 

“I'm going make you forget,” he promises, squeezing his hand. “I'm going to make you forget he ever touched you.” 

“Please,” Jack breathes. “Please do.”

He makes good on his promise. Tenderly, like butterflies, Mark works his way down his neck, sliding his shirt off over his head as he presses kisses to his collarbone and shoulders and chest and stomach. Before long, Mark's shirt is off too and his skin is hot against him and he loves it, he loves every second of it. 

This feels good. Every bit of it feels good. Mark mumbles sweet nothings to him as he proceeds, how much he loves him, as if making up for all the times he hadn't said it before. Jack whispers _I love you_ over and over again—he can think of nothing else. He loves him. He loves him more than he's ever loved anyone or anything in the world. 

It's the best sex he's ever had. It's passionate and tender and rough and gentle and it's one big paradox that explodes inside of him. It resonates with him. When they're finished, Mark holds him close and Jack is content, despite how hot and messy and tired he is. 

They fall asleep tangled together. 

~~

In the morning, Jack wakes to the sun.

But it's not the sort of sun that streams through the window. It's Mark. When Jack opens his eyes, he sees Mark, sleeping soundly next to him with tousled hair and a smile on his lips. It fills him with a happiness he hadn't known he could feel. 

But more than that, he's there. He's there next to him. He's tangible, real, truly there. As if to remind himself of this, Jack presses his palm to Mark's cheek, and when the other opens his eyes, he lets out a shaky breath.

“We'll be okay,” Jack says, and it's heavy on his tongue. But he means it. God, if he's ever meant anything in this world, it's this. “We'll be okay.”

Mark blinks lazily, hazy with sleep, but he's still smiling as he holds his hand. 

“We'll be okay,” he affirms. “We'll be okay.” 

Mark pulls him close again, and the gesture makes Jack feels at peace. He hears Mark's heartbeat, low and powerful all the same. Jack feels like maybe it's in sync with his. 

He sighs. He's home.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [With Those Tired Eyes He Saw](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8611054) by [LissaWho5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LissaWho5/pseuds/LissaWho5)




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